Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Hillary Wins California & NJ to Become Democratic Nominee

Well, it appears that Hillary did win.

Of course, all of the propaganda and the rigging of the electoral process, as well as the major corporate media's constant, relentless portrayal of her as inevitable, coupled with their "breaking news" announcement yesterday that she has clinched the Democratic nomination, have finally done their job, apparently.

One thing that this whole election process in particular showed me was never to trust the American political process again. For once, outsiders seemed to have their moment. Yet, the one who ultimately thrived was an egocentric, racist billionaire. The guy who actually brought something new to the American political system, and who's honesty, integrity, and sincerity were such a wonderful change in American politics, he put up an exceptionally good fight.

Ultimately, however, the American voters could not separate themselves from their addiction to voting for the lesser of two evils.

Now, we are faced with this choice: Hillary or Trump. Trump or Hillary.

Blah.

Honestly, I cannot picture myself voting for either of them under any circumstances. A vote for Trump would be a vote for partying, billionaire wanna be's, who sounds quite racist often times, to the point that it simply cannot be some kind of mistake. Yet, a vote for Clinton is a vote for a Washington insider in an era when Washington is a broken system. She took some lessons from Bush's stolen election in 2000, and even bested him by some of the crap that she and her people apparently pulled.

Yes, she won. But she did not do so fairly, despite her boasts of having won by three million votes. You had to sense that something was wrong, when all of the polls suggested that Bernie Sanders not only had a higher favorability rating, but much higher favorability ratings, in poll after poll. Also, all of those images of people standing on line waiting for a Bernie rally, where tens of thousands of people would pack a stadium to hear what he has to say, while Hillary was lucky if she could get a few hundred supporters at her rallies.

It was the process of primaries closed to anyone but registered Democrats. It was in hos the media continually, relentlessly counted the superdelegates into their math equations, making the math look prohibitive, if not impossible, for Bernie Sanders and his supporters, even though the superdelegates cannot vote until the convention in July. It was in how she seemed to always get more delegates than Bernie, regardless of the results. Remember how she lost by double digits in Wyoming to Bernie Sanders, but still somehow collected more delegates than he did? True, that was a glaring example, and the Democrats id correct that much later, after it only served to fuel the fire of the increasing skepticism and contempt that people had for the Democratic Party establishment by that point.

Also, it was in the money that kept pouring into her campaign. Not from the people, mind you, which was the case with Sanders, but from Wall Street firms and corporations that she has very friendly ties to. One cannot help but wonder just how much she will get tough on them as she promised when they bailed her out of trouble time and again during this campaign. It was in the unwavering support of establishment types like Debbie Wasserman Shultz, Howard Dean, and other Democratic establishment sorts, who quite blatantly had quotes illustrating that the voice of the people, expressed by democratic means, would be suppressed by official rules and regulations rigged to make sure that their candidate would most certainly win.

So, yes, Hillary won. But democracy lost. And frankly, America lost something with yesterday's crushingly disappointing election results. The only state that voted for Bernie yesterday was North Dakota, and I, as a Bernie supporter, am appreciative of their determination. By the same token, I will not pretend to be anything but very disappointed in voters in California, as well as my own state of New Jersey, for failing to recognize just how unique of an opportunity we have here, and voting for the same old same old instead.

As I mentioned here before, I am a French citizen, and have both observed and participated in French elections. Frankly, there is something to be said about European elections in general, and I believe that this is another area where they have it right, and we have it wrong.

When I voted in the French elections in both 2007 and 2012, there were first rounds of elections, followed by second round of elections. In the first round, you had a whole bunch of options, although there were usually two, sometimes three, who stood a bit taller than most others. What this meant is that you got to vote for your conscience in the first round, and then, in the second and final round between the two leading candidates from the first round, you picked the one of the two who you believed to be the best option. I had no real problems voting for the mainstream candidates in this way, after having essentially voted against both of them in the first round.

Here in the United States, we have the two party system instead. But both parties mutually have agreed to grab the power, and ensure it remains in their hands, come what may. That means that other parties - and other opinions and ways of doing things - are silenced, and that translates to a country of well over 310 million people having their political voice and options limited to whatever the party line of the Democrats and Republicans happen to be. That is how you get so many people sick and tired of having to choose between candidates such as Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. This choice gets particularly sickening when the two parties seem to bear an awful resemblance towards one another, and when you hear revelations that they are taking massive funds from the same sources, with the most obvious recently being Goldman Sachs. No wonder Goldman Sachs keeps getting away with their criminal conduct. How could it be otherwise?

For that matter, when the political system begins to rot like that, as it has been doing now for many years, how can the people be faulted for being so repulsed by it, that they no longer want anything to do with it?

We have "known" for a long time that Hillary was the presumptive Democratic nominee. It has literally been years, since probably around the time that she dropped out of the Obama administration after his first term. Despite her claims to not know whether she was going to run, did anyone seriously harbor any doubts that she would indeed run? No doubts in my mind existed.

This country really could be a better, more democratic society, a fairer and more equitable society, if it wanted to. But it would require us to do something that, historically speaking, has been a very painful thing for Americans - too painful for a huge portion of Americans to ever acknowledge or even consider. And it is this: to admit that our system not only is not perfect, but is not the most perfect system in existence, and that indeed, it is done better in other countries.

Sure, mediocrity prevails in other countries. No doubts about that. The voting systems in Europe, where there are a lot more options than there tend to be here, have failed at times themselves, allowing extremist groups to gain. After all, in 2002, Le Pen, a blatant racist, was one of the two options in the final round of the French presidential elections.

However, here in the United States, we now have an eccentric, offensively loud and egotistical, and quite blatantly racist guy in charge of the Republican party. If he plays his cards right, he will be the next man to occupy the Oval Office, and that is a scary thing. It also illustrates just how much the American system can fail.

And to my mind's eye, if that does not do it, then Hillary's win yesterday does. After all, she was presumed to be the Democrat's next nominee for years, and certainly, everyone expected her to run away with it last year. Instead, despite tons of money from corporate banking, and despite the unwavering support from Democratic elites, she had to cling to the nomination that continually threatened to fall out of her grasp.

Ultimately, though, this had the feeling of inevitability, since before the first vote was cast. And that is problematic, because it is not democratic. We now have two of the most disliked and distrusted candidates in history facing off against one another in November's election. What's worse, we will now have to hear about it for the better part of half a year, which really is ridiculously long.

We need a change. We had a chance for real change in this election, but collectively, we blew it. I was proud to vote for Bernie Sanders yesterday, to now have officially been a part of it. But it made no difference, and I have heard a lot of supporters essentially oice the same thing, so disillusioned are they by Hillary. On top of it, I know quite a few people who enthusiastically support Bernie and his ideas, but know of no one who is gung ho pro-Hillary. Mostly, those who back her do so almost shrugging, feeling it is inevitable.

Yes, we need a change. I have some ideas, including but not restricted to following what appears to be a superior European model. Also, let's get public funding of elections, and put an emphasis on getting rid of big money in politics and stamping out corruption. Otherwise, we get "winners" like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and that is why the collective feel after each major election is that the country as a whole has lost.

3 comments:

"One thing that this whole election process in particular showed me was never to trust the American political process again." In my case that ship sailed eons ago. I took part in yesterday's primary, but as we say in French "Je ne me fais pas d'illusions" – I know full well it's a symbolic gesture, as opposed to something that's going to shake up an electoral process which, as you already pointed out, is rigged. I once read a post in which someone likened Hillary versus Trump to choosing a venereal disease with which to be afflicted. That about sums up it up. For the first time in my life I'm seriously tempted to just sit this one out.